Why I don't trust professional critics or their agenda-driven reviews in one image.
I stopped watching Series 11 halfway through. It doesn't feel like Doctor Who anymore. It's not fun. And, frankly, its attempts at tackling social issues are so ham-fisted that they just make the show seem poorly written.
Meanwhile, The Orville is the best project Seth MacFarlane has ever been associated with, and, despite being primarily a comedy series, it still manages to feel more like Star Trek than Star Trek Discovery did.
Switched (Netflix Original) - Japanese take on the "body switch curse" plotline that sees the pretty popular girl switching bodies with the unpopular homely girl. Where it does differ from it's contemporaries is that this isn't because the pretty girl (Ayumi) needs to learn a lesson about humility, but is a deliberate plot by the jealous unpopular girl (Umine) to steal her life (This isn't a spoiler, as it's revealed in the first episode). Pretty interesting watch, and at only 6 episodes, you can get through it pretty quickly.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
@Ralizah Doctor Who sounds pretty bad now, but to be fair, I can see why someone would think the Orville is terrible. From what I’ve seen it’s awful and falls flat in every way. It’s not funny at all.
The big bad in the final episode of Doctor Who season 11 was for the most part as cool as always, though overall I've not been that keen on this season. The big problems for me this season are that the political messages feel awkward and stick out like a sore thumb, and too much time is spent on the companion's backstory. It just doesn't have the feel of people going on a fun adventure like it usually does.
@Jaz007 Hmm. I quite like The Orville. The humor is much more character-driven than most of the projects MacFarlane is usually associated with, and it still has some good plots and satirical subtext in certain episodes.
But humor is a very subjective thing. A lot of people find SNL and comedians like Tina Fey to be hilarious, but neither have inspired more than a half-hearted chuckle from me.
Castlevania season 2 (Netflix Original) - While I wasn't big on season 1, season 2 was pretty great IMO. I had some reservations at first when they introduced Dracula's generals at the start of the season (Like season one, I thought they were going to have to spend all season focusing on building things up with the introduction of all these new characters), but it came together by the end of the season with a very exciting climactic battle.
Roman Empire (Netflix Original) season 2 - Not the most elaborately produced series, but it has a unique style blending embellished historical drama & educational documentary, and since the seasons are really short I enjoy watching them.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
I say getting through because it's really not very good; think The Walking Dead circa season 2 but with vampires and you're pretty much there.
I really wouldn't recommend it and that's on the back of watching pretty much all of the (many) time travel shows Netflix provides!
Travelers can be great at times, Continuum has it's moments too. Timeless is pretty terrible but in a rather watchable way and Twelve Monkeys is one of those extremely OK shows.
Still, one of the best time travel shows I've ever seen was 11.22.63, which I watched on a flight to Australia. Brilliant show if you can find it anywhere.
PSN: KALofKRYPTON (so you can see how often I don't play anything!)
Twitter: @KALofKRYPTON (at your own risk, I don't care if you're offended)
"Fate: Protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise." - Cmdr William T. Riker
@JohnnyShoulder it's been on the cards a while. Trailer looks decent, surprisingly.
In other news, Van Helsing remained pretty dumb and inconsistent with itself right up until the end.
5 episodes in to The Punisher season 2 and it is really tough going. This show is so dull 🙄
Season one had its 'this whole thing is just a build up' moments, but with DareDevil and Iron Fist picking up the slack from their previous seasons - I wasn't expecting Punisher to big itself down so readily.
PSN: KALofKRYPTON (so you can see how often I don't play anything!)
Twitter: @KALofKRYPTON (at your own risk, I don't care if you're offended)
"Fate: Protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise." - Cmdr William T. Riker
I recently watched the new season of Grace & Frankie and thought it maintained the usual high quality, with a handful of genuine laugh-out-loud moments sprinkled across an otherwise-charming run. It will always contain elements and characters I can't enjoy or support, but I was nervous about things getting even worse after the last season's cliffhanger; thankfully, they smartly avoided reinforcing a disgusting stereotype and things got back on track pretty quickly. I'm mostly watching for the performances of the four main stars (Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen and my favourite, Sam Waterston) and they never, ever disappoint.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@JohnnyShoulder I'll pop it in spoiler tags, in case anybody passing through is a viewer and hasn't watched the new season yet. It's only been up a couple weeks.
During the last season, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston (who play a gay couple) were having relationship difficulties and went to see a couples counsellor. This counsellor suggested that most (if not all) successful gay relationships between two men needed to be "open" because all men are inherently, biologically incapable of monogamy. She advised that they should consider sleeping with other men, or engaging in a threesome, to save their relationship. The season cliffhanger for their storyline involved a younger friend of theirs stripping off naked in their house and propositioning both of them, and them both staring at him, unsure of what to do.
This kind of thing always crops up in television nowadays. There was an episode of The Good Wife where they were arguing a case in defence of a gay couples' marriage and there was a dramatic setback in court when it was revealed the couple had "Free Fridays" where they could go off and sleep around. I'm undecided whether it's straight writers not understanding gay relationships, or whether it's gay writers stuck in bad relationships wanting to excuse their poor behaviour, but I always recoil regardless. Not wanting to sound arrogant, but I'm a guy who's north of the halfway point between "conventionally handsome" and "conventionally ugly" and this kind of attitude is why I tend not to engage with the gay community. Not only does it spread a bad reputation about gay men to heterosexuals and others, it seems to normalise and give licence to gay men to act like everybody's fair game. I take my relationship with my partner very seriously and I've had several negative experiences over the years, ranging from awkward to borderline assault, because people seem to think that all gay men sleep around and / or are always open to the idea.
The resolution in the storyline in Grace & Frankie was that Martin Sheen pretended to faint, to avoid the embarrassment, and then other events from other ongoing storylines interjected. Later in the episode, he and Sam Waterston agreed that they'd made a mistake and that it wasn't for them, and vowed to remain faithful to one another. Later in the season, there was a much better, more realistic representation of an "open" relationship that almost seemed in direct response to potential complaints (or at least, that's how it felt; I don't know if there were any actual complaints or not).
Television is always good for measuring social trends because if you see something on TV, chances are it'll make it to cinema and become normalised within a decade, so I'm a little concerned whenever I see examples like the above. I'm hoping this specific pattern of representation will change before it can be reinforced as normal.
Grace & Frankie is such a bohemian show anyway, so maybe I'm being too sensitive.
Sorry for the rant.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger I don't and never intend to watch it, so popped the spoilers... Um... That is quite the stereotype! Nice to see they didn't run with it - perhaps an intentional fingers up to 'community'.
I remember seeing an interview with George Michael where he said essentially the same thing as the fictional counselor - I also remember thinking 'no, you just want to screw around!'
@KALofKRYPTON Yeah, I'm convinced that's gotta be the motivation. Either that, or there are a heck of a lot of people out there who've never fallen in love (which is kinda a horrible thought).
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Forums
Topic: The TV Show Thread
Posts 701 to 720 of 4,445
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic